I teach courses in the University of Connecticut’s Health Care Management Major.

Current courses

HCMI 3243 – Health Care Economics, HCMI 4225 – Health and Social Insurance and HCMI 4448 – Clinical and Social Issues in Health Care.

Previous teaching

UConn

Spring 2023: HCMI 4225 – Health and Social Insurance
Spring 2023: HCMI 5243 – Health Care Economics.
Fall 2022: HCMI4225 – Health and Social Insurance.
Spring 2022: HCMI4225 – Health and Social Insurance.
Spring 2022: HCMI5243 – Health Care Economics.
Fall 2021: HCMI4225 – Health and Social Insurance.
Spring 2021: HCMI4225 – Health and Social Insurance.
Spring 2021: HCMI5243 – Health Care Economics.
Fall 2020: HCMI4225 – Health and Social Insurance.
Spring 2020: HCMI4225 – Health and Social Insurance.
Spring 2020: HCMI5243 – Health Care Economics.
Fall 2019: HCMI4225 – Health and Social Insurance.
Spring 2019: HCMI4225 – Health and Social Insurance.
Spring 2019: HCMI5243 – Health Care Economics.
Fall 2018: HCMI4225 – Health and Social Insurance.

Earlier

Before coming to UConn, I taught/graded/TA’d courses at Northeastern Illinois University in principles of macroeconomics, in mathematical economics, in economic statistics, and in principles of microeconomics; at Iowa State University in Calculus II, Calculus for Business Students, and College Algebra; at the University of Washington in principles of microeconomics, in econometrics, and in global health; and at Lancaster University in principles of microeconomics and principles of macroeconomics.. Please contact me if you are looking for materials related to these courses.

Student evaluations of teaching

Of most interest to the department is my median overall score. My median scores have always been 4 (out of 5) or better.
Of most interest to me is the comments. I also like to see that my students feel they are learning and that the course isn’t too easy or too hard. Overall, I’ve been happy with my scores in these areas, although I would like to continue to improve and find appropriate ways to increase the difficulty.

Past Comments:

Undergraduate Courses:

What was the most positive aspect of the way in which this instructor taught this course?

Fall 2018 HCMI4225 He explained the articles after we read them and did assignments on them, instead of just asking what we thought and leaving us confused. Shane was accessible to students and made lectures seem more like a conversation than him talking at us. He is very fun and entertaining, tries to make our very small lecture section fun and worthwhile Spring 2019 HCMI4225 Classes were interesting and relevant to current events He had interactive segments throughout the semester which was good. Also, he would show videos to help us understand various concepts. He did a very good job keeping the class interacted with his teachings at all times. He really did a great job helping bolster our health insurance and social insurance knowledge and made sure everyone was on the same page at all times The activities were really helpful for engaging students and we got to choose some of the lecture topics. Also he was really engaged in supporting students learning and wanted us to succeed.

Fall 2019 HCMI4225 Dr. Murphy was passionate about the content he taught. He know a lot about the industry and is very flexible about catering toward the student’s needs. Overall, the class has been a great experience, and the teacher was very nice and class was enjoyable. I enjoyed being asked what we wanted to learn in the second half of the course, and catering toward us as students, and trying to help us learn easier and better. I liked how the instructor tried to get us to engage in the discussion and not just lecture to us the whole time. I also really thought the midterm and final exam reviews were great and helped me narrow down what was important to know and understand. I also think professor Murphy did a great job in making sure his students were not failing and could take away some knowledge about health and social insurance. The instructor was clearly very passionate about the topic and his views on the matter. The forced discussions with the class were helpful and stimulated learning. The instructor treated us with respect and answered our questions and was willing to work with us. He understood that a lot of us have many things going on since most of us were seniors and allowed us to submit homework past deadlines which was useful. He actually wanted his students to succeed and was willing to help in any way possible. The flexibility that he had in due dates and assignments made it a lot easier to learn. If I was super busy in a week, I did not feel stressed to simply get an assignment done and I could spend the time to actually absorb the information. Also, his grading allowed for students to not simply memorize absolutely everything and simply understand the overall picture better. I enjoyed how the professor was easy going and not one to make me feel like he was above me. He made the material relatively simple and created an environment that made it enjoyable to be in class. Shane encouraged participation which helped us learn the content. He also asked for our opinions in terms of how well we understood certain topics in order to determine how much longer we should discuss that topic.

What can this instructor do to improve teaching effectiveness in the classroom?

Fall 2018 HCMI4225 Have more of a plan for each day; every day was kind of all over the place Try and find more class activities that can get the class involved. We had a couple, but not a lot. Reach out to other professors to see what information is taught in the lower level healthcare classes. A large amount of the information in this class is a repeat of information I’ve already learned, and the textbook used is the same textbook used for both HCMI 3240 and 3243. In addition, setting objectives a bit more clearly would help. I am not totally sure what the overall purpose of the course was. I definitely learned things, but I feel as though I just learned a wide variety of information without a solid main focus.

Spring 2019 HCMI4225 Break up the class a little more because sometimes it can very monotonous. I think the only big improvement that could be made is maybe have paper checkpoints for the final paper beginning even earlier in the semester The material was not related from week to week sometimes. It was hard to follow how some of the info was related. Also sometimes the slides were a little wordy.

Fall 2019 HCMI4225 The instructor can possibly create debates or more full–class discussions as health policy is interesting and I think debates and discussion with everyone required to talk would be cool. Professor Murphy can maybe try to be a little more organized in what is being taught in a class period since some days it was a little confusing. A suggestion would be to have a slide in the beginning of the powerpoints that briefly outlines what is being taught and what is important. Also it would be helpful if he did not assume everyone knew a lot about politics or economics since sometimes he would fly over those topics when I had no idea what they really were causing me to research more outside of class. Vary a bit from the PowerPoint structure. Sometimes class can feel disconnected particularly when he gets off topic. It can be hard to follow what is going on in class. Also during class discussions, he tends to take over the discussion and not let other students share their views. Maybe have a different way of reviewing for the exam. The PowerPoint game was fun and informative but a proper review of what will be on the exam. It would help to make certain lectures a little more engaging. Sometimes it got a little boring and it was easy to get lost and distracted.

Please write any comments you have about the course or course materials.

Fall 2018 HCMI4225 good teacher! Cares about his students and you can tell he enjoys the subject The papers we had to read and the homework was all useful for me, a healthcare management major. I liked the supplemental readings more than the textbook (which wasn’t used much at all, anyways). Some of the assignments were a little long for homeworks, however. Especially the most recent homework assignment 8 which is in the same week as the final exam and paper

Spring 2019 HCMI4225 Amazing course, amazing content, amazing teacher.

Fall 2019 HCMI4225 No course materials aside from online articles which were VERY INTERESTING and I appreciate Professor Murphy finding great sites for us and caring about us, urging us to become more knowledgeable about the industry. I thought the course material was very interesting to learn and I enjoyed learning the history about certain laws and acts rather than just knowing what they are and what they do. Interesting course overall, effective measures of evaluating learning The material was interesting. Course readings are helpful, but can be a bit long Professor was clearly knowledgable in the course material. Overall, I thought it was a really good course and the material was really interesting.

Graduate Courses:

Spring 2019 HCMI5243 What was the most positive aspect of the way in which this instructor taught this course?

Shane is a nice guy, and very flexible on due dates. Professor brought in current topics and issues that were related to the material allowing for class discussion Professor Murphy has a very Socratic approach to teaching, in that he presents a few opposing perspectives and asks questions in attempt to break them down without letting his own biases guide the discussion toward a particular outcome. The best parts of the class were watching videos of other professionals and academics explaining the material in a concise and interesting manner. Instructor introduced some of world renowned economist/health economist work part of the course; I believe that made a huge impact in the learning process. Providing a lot of published articles as class material, which were really helpful. I think we read some interesting articles this semester.

What can this instructor do to improve teaching effectiveness in the classroom? Use more recent articles for weekly readings. The articles assigned were extremely outdated. I don’t feel as though I learned anything about the current economics of health care, but rather I learned more about the history of it. Also- assign less reading/writing assignments! This is a part time MBA program and the amount of work given truly felt like a full-time course. The expectations to have each student read and write as much as we did is truly too high. More work assigned in this class, than a combination of classes! Article content was often boring and too outdated to promote functional learning. I would suggest focusing on current day health economics. Only one week is assigned to talk about the ACA and that is the final week of the semester which is extremely disappointing. At times, it was hard to grasp what was expected for the assignments and when assignments were due. He had a tendency to over-explain certain things to the point where it became a little unclear what the expectations were. The material needs to be organized better. Most of the readings were completely unnecessary. If the material is not going to be discussed in the subsequent classes, do not make students read 3 plus articles a week for no purpose. It was a complete waste of time and no value add. Class discussions also need more structure. Lectures lacked direction and cohesiveness. I think Shane should realize that his students are professionals and not academics and should structure his class to serve the interests of business professionals. People in the MBA program don’t usually care about theory. I certainly don’t and I can’t imagine anyone does either. It doesn’t factor into my everyday life.

Please write any comments you have about the course or course materials. Get rid of the old articles assigned. Hardly any articles that were within the last 5 years. I feel like any health economist would capitalize on teaching this course, especially now, since there is so much going on in health care. However, this was not done this semester. Assign less work – unrealistic to expect full time dedicated to a part time program/class. I quite enjoyed this course and the way it examined a number of health topics from an economic perspective. My only criticism is that the reading materials were often quite dense and lengthy. I get the sense this might be typical of the economics field but some of the articles rambled considerably and were very poorly organized, to the point where their main thesis was muddled and lost. Examples include Deaton (2006), the Deaton youtube video, and Newhouse (1992) There were too many reading materials that had no value add to the course. The reading response papers felt like busy work. There should have be no response papers due towards the end of the course, or at least due every other since since there is both a research paper and a final exam for the course.